The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini is the author of The Kite Runner. He has also written two other books: And the Mountains Echoed and A Thousand Splendid Suns. All three books are set in Afghanistan at least for a while, and have an Afghan as the protagonist. All three are fiction, that tell incredible stories. 

The Kite Runner features many themes like the relationship of father and son, how friendship and the past intertwine, how religion and social classes can divide a people more than you'd believe. But the most important one is how your past will always come back someday, whether you like it or not. That the past always matters, and you can't change what happened in the past, but you can change how that affects your future.

Born in 1960's Afghanistan, Amir lives a happy life with his father Baba, and their family's servant Ali, and his son Hassan. Amir and Hassan become strong companions, though Amir is reluctant to call him "friend." Amir strives for his fathers attention, yet Baba doesn't seem to understand him and his love of literature so he feels that Baba gives more attention to Hassan, as if he were his son. 

On the winter of 1975, at the age of 12, him and Hassan enter a kite competition which is quite popular in Afghanistan. They strive for greatness, and succeed. He finally gains what he wants, his father's pride. Hassan goes to find the kite that they had defeated in the competition, and Amir finds him being raped by the bully/sociopath of their neighborhood, Assef. Amir hides, not doing anything to help Hassan due to his cowardice and runs, pretending he didn't see anything and act like everything is normal.  He begins avoiding Hassan out of guilt for what had happened, and how he didn't help. Hassan's father Ali finds out, and leaves Baba and Amir without telling Baba what had happened out of Hassan's begging not to. Baba and Amir later are forced to leave due to the war that had started in their country. They make the journey to America, where Baba begins to adjust to American culture and life, and Amir begins to fall in love with Soraya, an Afghan woman who works at the flea market besides him and his father. Baba gets diagnosed with a terminal illness, and later passes away. They get married, and life goes well for him. Later on, Baba's friend Rahim Khan, a close friend to Amir as well since Rahim always supported Amir with his writing dreams. He asks Amir to visit him. When Amir arrives, he learns that Hassan had lived his life and had a wife and son. Though they had later been killed, Rahim has one request. Find Hassan's son Sohrab, and bring him back to somewhere safe. This part of the book ties in how Afghanistan had changed when the Taliban were put in power, and what it had done to it's people.

I recommend this book to anyone who can handle a lengthy book that features multiple, multiple details. This book offers many details that come up in several different parts which connects the entire story, not just as a series of events; but as a true novel should connect. This book is intriguing because it creates connections to the characters involved as it searches for sympathy with the reader and shows the similarities and differences cultures have. This book may connect to the other books Khaled has written, as they all show Afghanistan but just from different perspectives. It could also connect to anyone interested in stories of pain and forgiveness.

Book Review by Thomas D.